alex spent the day at a friend's house. near supper time marty called over to ask about the plan. the lady said they had no particular ideas in mind and the boys were still playing strong. marty worried alex would be upset if we ate without him so had the lady ask him what he wanted to do.

FRIEND'S MOM
alex. i have your mom on the phone. she's wondering what you want to do about dinner.

ALEX
uhhh. what is my mom making?

FRIEND'S MOM (she asks marty)
pork and green bean stir fry.

ALEX
uhhhmm. what are you making?

FRIEND'S MOM
i think we're going to have eggs.

ALEX
well. i do like pork and green bean stir fry more than eggs but will stay here and keep playing.

note:
while assessing his choices might come off as a tad rude, his choosing the lesser option to stay in the woman's home may make up for any prior slight.

last weekend we were invited to a family's lake house. this family has four boys, three of their kids line up with ours in age and grade. alex's friendship with his age peer predominately fuels the relationship, but marty and i have come to enjoy the parents as we've gotten to know them more.

the kids were nervous and expressed concern on the way there. what will it be like? what if we don't like it? do they have an indoor toilet? marty and i confessed ignorance to all points and explained that we were on a family adventure and needed to enjoy the mystery of it all. after arriving late, we walked up to the adults who were sitting in swings and on picnic tables while kids played below in the lake. our kids approached the scene sheepishly, as did marty and i greeting our peers. down below a young boy's voice bellowed FROG! bella's face immediately lit up and snapped to. she looked at marty who gave the 'go ahead' face and bella charged down the slope to join the chase. as for aleo, he saw two paddleboats chained to a dock. he immediately moved to marty's side and repeatedly looked from her face to the boats. marty asked if the boats could be taken out and when the hostess said of course, alex was lost to us for the next five hours as he took one boat after another out, commanding them just as if he were a proper riverboat captain. and anthony, well anthony mostly just hurled himself off any dock or structure his muscly little arms could pull himself onto.

a few hours into the adventure, the adults continued to sit atop the hill surveying the scene, their conversations accented by the excited play of nine kids about the lake. the playful banter and calls were then broken by some elevated tones from two of them, one of them being anthony. shortly after the disagreement began i heard a long declaration ring out across the lake "stop it you stupid penis head." i cringed at the discernible words but hoped that this was one of those moments where, as anthony's speech therapist tells us, there will be things he says that we understand but others don't. as the seconds ticked off without any reaction i heard another tinny voice ring out, "mom, anthony just called me a penis head." my shoulders slumped as now i knew something more overt than a "later-talking-to" had to happen.

after pulling anthony out of the lake he asked what he did. i told him that he called the son of our host family a penis head. anthony immediately started with a "but he ...". i cut him off saying there is not a "but he" explanation out there that justifies calling the boy a penis head, especially yelling it across the lake so everyone can hear. then i thought about a few of the people i have professional dealings with and considered amending my statement. i opted to wait until later this week when anthony is at least six years old and has a better chance of discerning the nuance of when throwing down penis-head is not only acceptable but actually the best choice.

last year marty subbed for three weeks. after the tour i asked her if there were any noticeable changes in the classroom over the last decade. she said, yes, one, there were no smartphones ten years ago.

now that she's there more often her time off is showing in other ways too. when the teachers were getting their rooms ready marty walked into the science teachers office and asked:

MARTY
does anyone have an easel-pad.

YOUNG COLLEAGUE
what's an easel-pad?

MARTY
it's a big sheet of paper you can write stuff on.

YOUNG COLLEAGUE
i don't have an easel-pad but i think i got some slates you can borrow.

growing up, i didn't think much about my wedding day. i always considered it a day about the bride and i carried this sentiment right to the doorstep of my own ceremony. but once the day set in and all of our family came together, and all of our friends appeared, no matter where they were in the country and everyone had such great smiles, happiness, and high hopes for us, i found myself swept up i ...

we haven't seen much of the olympics. sad and curious. sad because i would have enjoyed much of what there was. curious because we were traveling when they started and always found ourselves in spots with great, sometimes multiple, large televisions. the problem we encountered--we were always out. and when we got back, we were often too spent to do anything but go to bed. of the nights we did watch, i observed something about the coverage: commercials, and lots of them. of all the ones i saw, the one below struck me the most.

our first day in the mountains began perfectly enough. we arrived to the cabin early enough the night before to get unpacked, settled, fed, and to bed at a reasonable hour. the next morning we woke to clear skies. we dressed, ate and headed up the poudre canyon. our first hike this year was to be the one that eluded us last year--the neota trail--as we couldn't find the trailhead. with renewed guidance from our hosts, liz and john, we easily found the start point this time. about a half mile into the trek, alex (9) pointed at the peaks ahead and said it looked like rain and perhaps we should head back. marty and i scanned the sky and said it should hold out for this shortish hike and urged the kids to continue. alex re-expressed his concern. this was not the first time alex has given us weather counsel we should have listened to.

ten minutes later the clouds darkened and a few minutes after that opened up with a light rain. we assured the kids it was just a drizzle and things would be fine. five minutes later the thunder cracked, loudly. and five minutes after that the peppercorn sized hail began to fall. with this latest turn, marty ushered the family into the trees where we took cover from the hail under a dense clump of pines.

i took this time to brighten my dour crew by complaining about the how much these added frills were going to cost me when we got home. the children inquired what i meant. i explained that all of these antics, rain, lightning, thunder, and now hail were going to surely be on the bill i received when we got home and how it was sorta like a hotel experience and every order of room service or movie viewing would be a line item on the final invoice when the stay was over. and every time another crack of thunder rang out, i'd grouse, "oh great, there's another fifty cents". and when the hail started i complained vigorously, "hail! hail! oh wonderful, that's surely going to be like three, maybe even five dollars extra!" my theatrics mostly confused my kids as they tried to figure out the mechanics of such accounting. but my wife stood under a her tree, soaked sans rain gear, possibly wanting to cry but instead laughing uncontrollably through my exhibition while the kids looked at one another fully confused and asked questions like "who sends you the bill?" and "do we have to pay for rain at home?".

this short trail along a high elevation meadow is known for wildlife, especially moose. to this point in our walk we'd barely seen a bird or chipmunk. i'm confident this outcome was largely due to the kids boisterous way of life. now twenty feet off the trail hiding out from the weather, the meadow had nary a human peep. when the hail stopped and the family filed back towards the trail shushes were suddenly passed back and a call for a camera. i looked up to see a mother moose and her young moose kid/calf/mooselet walking not twenty feet from marty and bella who were at the head of our line. both of our proper cameras were buried in the pack strapped to me. worried about the time and noise it would take to get to the gear, i instead reached into my zippered thigh pocket for my iphone, pulled it out and sent it up the line.

i think, i imagine, i reckon this is where the cabin key fell out of my pocket and onto the ground. i think this because after we finished our hike and drove down the mountain and i walked to the front door and reached into the zippered pocket where i put the two most valuable things--my iphone and the cabin key--for safekeeping and found no key, my mind flashed back to me looking down at the pocket lining sticking out of the zippered mouth of the pocket after i quickly pulled the wet phone out of the wet pocket in attempt to get a picture of a momma and baby moose. i'm pretty sure that is where i lost it. i explained this much to marty and asked if we should go back to the trail to test my theory (as i pulled the phone out for other pictures after that as well) or do we drive the hour down the canyon back to town to get a backup key from the owners. without pause, marty voted for the sure thing and i slid back behind the wheel and we headed down-canyon to fort collins.

when we arrived at the house the kids were in different states of dress given the wet clothes had to be removed from their shivery bodies once we got back to the car. hours later the kids were no longer frost bit but their clothes were still a soppy mess piled in the back of the van. now more hours later yet, anthony was fully naked, although this is nothing especially unique. alex was wearing nothing but a blue-grey pair of camouflage boxer-briefs. and bella also was in just underwear but was additionally wrapped in a picnic blanket marty had on hand.

both Liz and John were obviously at work it being the middle of a monday and Will, their son, was out and about as a high-school age man on summer break should be. over the phone, liz talked us through where to look for backup keys. it turned out they had all been loaned out and not yet returned making the key on john's keyring the last available copy. liz called him. he was visiting with a client. not wanting to disturb them any further we offered to drive to him. the house was just down the street from liz's girlhood home and easily found.

i was nervous about this intrusion into his day but the smile john flashed upon walking out of the home he was working in was warm and welcoming. we quickly recounted what happened and apologized about the bother. he said no worries and handed over the key. he asked that we make a couple copies and leave the extras in the realtor-like lockbox at the cabin. it was here that i got to top any blows the day had delivered by confessing that neither marty and i had a wallet, having thought we were just going on a brief mountain hike, and asked if i could borrow some money to make the keys. this bought another flash of john's youthful smile while he reached for his wallet. he leafed through the bills looking up to ask with a smirk if we needed any extra money to feed the children or possibly go to the movies. earlier in our visit i was offering to let john adopt me given his vibrant and covetous lifestyle. as he handed me a few bills to get me though the day i felt a step closer to this relationship. although john may have been less sold on bringing another dependent on given this performance.

as this trial unfolded and lengthened the family did surprisingly well. given the fatigue, the hunger, the cold and even in the different states of undress the kids and marty proved champs. and when the conversation did turn to "when will we be home" or "how long is this going to take" i would remind them of great thing that was occurring right now. when they asked what that might be, i replied, this is a story that will be told around our dinner table for decades, possibly generations to come, and there is nothing more that can be asked for from a day than that (assuming no real peril or evilness of course) so instead of wishing it to end we should be basking in the awesomeness of this memorable individual life moment. a set or two of eyes may have rolled at this paternal wisdom. i can't say as i didn't look. i couldn't bring myself to glance in the mirror and chose to believe they were all nodding in understanding and appreciation. this is a little trick i have in dealing with with the world around me. it may have its flaws but has been working for me wonderfully to date. and yes, if you are wondering, i am glad i can't see your expression right now.

after a nine year break from professional life, yesterday marty re-entered the workforce.

as the time came to leave she moved towards the stairs. i followed her down the hallway wanting to say goodbye as she left the house. before starting down the steps she ducked into her bedroom, crouched down and pulled a black eastpak out from under her dresser, a spot it's possibly sat since she last taught. she held the pack up before her and gave it a few punches knocking the dust off. after a few bats her eyes narrowed and she set it down next to the dresser. it would have to wait until tomorrow.

then, just moments before stepping out the door the phone rang. it was bella. she was down the street looking in on some dogs she was sitting. bella reported that one of the dog's pooped on the floor, as it had the day before. yesterday marty helped, largely, clean it up, taking a bucket and scrub brush down. on this day marty explained that she was running out the door for work and calmly counseled bella on a plan saying things like "you saw what i did yesterday right?" and "start with water and then step on the towels". marty then hung up the phone, gave me a kiss and darted out the door.

ten minutes later bella came through the front door, fighting back tears. i asked about her trouble and she explained that the dog pooped on the floor again and she forgot to take out their recycling as they had asked. i gave her a hug and said everything would be ok and we'd get through this one pace at a time. after a few moments, bella calmed down, stood back from me, wiped the tears from her face, straightened herself up, and went to the basement. she returned with a bucket and scrub-brush and wordlessly walked out the front door. through a french door, i watched her walk down the street and around the corner towards the job she now had to do on her own, without her mother.

marty stopped working so she could fully focus on raising her kids. five minutes into her return to work, she's still raising up her children, arguably in ways that she couldn't have raised them by staying in the home.

best of luck marta. you're going to do great. and so are we.

i started biking in my mid twenties. technically my biking journey began after marty commented that i looked a little doughy in the middle. surely when we met, thanks to a job unloading tractor trailers, i had a predominately dough-free middle. after some research and recruiting a friend to help, i bought a bike. my first ride, to marty's family home, was five miles long and concluded with a short but steep hill. to climb it i had to turn in a big circle every fifty feet or so to give my muscles enough of a break to continue the ascent. after that abysmal first showing i declared that i would ride this bike every day for one year, and i did. in this time, there were beautiful days but there were also rainy ones, and snowy ones, and ones that were so cold that i had to, mid-ride, stuff newspapers down my pants to keep the wind off my junk. the dough, largely, went away.

over the years, my rides got longer. by the end of the first year i could go out for twenty miles without great fear of not making it back. then in my late twenties while visiting my home town, i decided to try a ride some friends of mine once did. so i grabbed my $300 bike and my one bike bottle and set out to ride from fort collins to estes park. this was a thirty-five mile trek, one way, twenty five of them being straight uphill. after half a day of peddling and strain, i crested the final hill, rolled into estes and ate lunch on the front lawn of the stanley manor.

i've tried that ride three times since then, twice in my thirties and once in my forties. none of those attempts proved successful. the first time i got beat mentally and turned back on my own (i later learned i only had to round one more bend and i would have been there), the second failed attempt i didn't respect letting your body acclimate to the altitude and attempted the ride less than twelve hours after arriving in the state and couldn't breath (that time i didn't even make it five miles up the canyon), and the last time i just gassed out halfway up (due to an aging body and poor nutrition plan).

obviously these failed attempts have been plaguing me and besting that ride has been on my shortlist since the last time i didn't make it. last thursday, our last day of a two week colorado vacation (ensuring proper acclimation time), i attempted the ride, and with what was not a trivial bit of exertion i completed the ride for the first time in more than fifteen years. truth is i'd say i'm presently in the best shape of my life. in thinking through why i struggled so much in the last five miles, i attribute it to our vacation lifestyle. in each of the in the seven days before the ride, we had some physical family adventure. these mostly included hiking, canoeing, water-worlding, and even stand-up wake-boarding. the day before the ride we went on a four mile mountain hike that took us above the treeline (more on this soon). the hike in was the equivalent of climbing two miles worth of stairs, well, that is, if the stairs were uneven, of varying heights and never level. when i recount the happenings of the prior week, i think it's amazing i even came close to completing the ride as in some regards the deck has never been more stacked against me making it. certainly a testament to what swimming has done for me.

another, fortunate part of the experience was a few months back i mentioned this plan to bookguy who happened to be spending the summer months in new mexico. he had the notion of driving up and doing the ride with me. while there were many neat things that came from his participation, selfishly, the coolest were the pictures he snapped of me coming around the last bend and casting a fifteen year monkey off my back. i didn't know he was clicking off these pictures and he was obviously holding up far better than myself as taking pictures was the last thing on my mind while he was busy riding the same hill as me but shooting pics at the same time.

grinding out the last hundred feet
on the way back down bookguy made a most poignant comment. he said you don't realize how impressive climbing this hill is until you blast down it the other way. the reason for this is there is something difficult about gauging terrain in the mountains. there are times you look ahead and are sure you're looking at a downhill slope and wonder why you're struggling so on it. i imagine you could liken it to a mirage seen by a parched castaway. it's not until you fly down the other direction that you realize there were no downslopes at all and you just climbed a twenty five mile hill.




cresting the last bit of hill
i wasn't able to stand very long as my right quad cramped the second i'd lift out of the seat. this inability to vary how i approached the hills in the last few miles surely didn't do me any favors. in the end, i don't think i'd ever been so glad to see the end of a climb.




entering estes park proper
bookguy was miffed at the bad luck of having some guy taking out his trash just as i was passing the sign. marty felt the pedestrian chore gave the picture some good and real flavor. liking authentic imagery, i think i side with marty on its presence.




bookguy and i on the lawn of the stanley
just below this phenomenally picturesque veranda sits a pool. on this day it was unused and looked so cool and refreshing. the notion of hopping the fence and diving into the pool was the closest i've come to conducting an arrest-worthy offense, like, ever.

during our recent two day car ride, bookguy and i discussed many, many things, one of which surprisingly surprised bookguy. the item of note came when i mentioned part of my daily ritual. bookguy dismissively said he knew of my routine because i shared it on the site (many moons ago). i ...

summer break is one of our sweetest, civilized rituals. and who says such an inspired creation has to be reserved just for the school-centric population? surely not me. so i'm going to share in the playful exuberance of my children by taking my annual break from my duties here.

i promise it's not you and it's fully me. well, me and the stack of magazines saved up on my desk waiting for someone to leisurely leaf through them.

in case you didn't notice, i left you with one last bit of fun before shoving off.

see you on august 6th.

bella and i sat in chairs in the shade reading at our community pool. while there, a muscly guy showed up. he looked nearly like one of the guys you'd see in competition or on the cover of a magazine. covertly, bella leaned towards me saying, "check him out." after checking him out, she asked why i didn't look more like him. i commented that i wasn't sure we were the same species. then more seriously, i added that anyone who decides to look like that must make a life commitment to the goal, and i prefer eating dinner with my family. mildly surprised, bella asked why i wouldn't eat dinner anymore. i explained i would, i just wouldn't with her and mom and the boys. i asked her to guess where i'd be while they all ate. in a sober tone she replied the gym. right. i went on to explain that any extreme life achievement comes at the cost of other life experiences and given her, bella's, many proclivities, abilities and opportunities, these were choices she will have to one day face.

after a moment of quiet, i explained she got dealt a father who chased not a body, wealth or fame, but balance. with a grin i added that when you were handed looks as dashing as mine, it would be unfair to pile muscles on top of them. she grinned back and with that both our heads returned to the words in our books building the one muscle in our bodies that doesn't show well at the pool.

upon walking into the kitchen, i found alex washing something in the sink and anthony standing on a stool, naked except for a lightweight coat. alex, completely exasperated, turned to me and said:

this young boy can't stop touching his penis.

between the frustration and the use of 'this young boy' aleo could have passed for an over-fifty elementary recess attendant who had just drug the reputed school miscreant to the office for the third time in one week. i calmly told anthony to stop touching his penis in the kitchen and went about my way. as i left the space i heard alex say:

yeah, the only time you can do that is when you're sick.

hmmm. when i was young i watched price is right when i was sick. but, perhaps that's what all those showcase showdown girls were about.

i have a friend who is an outdoorsman, both out of interest and profession. whenever i have an expensive or uncertain purchase to make, i reach out to him and each time he answers. virtually every time i hear back from him (as i try not to pester him too often), i'm astonished anew at his breadth of insight and depth of his thoughtfulness. being a collector of thoughtful objects i wished to add th...

upon arriving at anthony's school (before summer break) the mother of anthony's best friend, grady, called for us to wait up. after reaching us, grady and anthony exchanged morning "heys". then grady's mom reminded her son about something. to this, grady began digging around his backpack. after finding the item he handed it to anthony who offered his upright palm. grady dropped alex's small swiss army knife into anthony's hand and said, "i can't keep this anthony". after i apologized to the mom who moved on, i knelt down and asked anthony to explain why his friend had alexander's new swiss army knife. anthony looked at me guiltily. grady's family moved on. i knelt next to anthony to begin discussing what just happened. part of the exchange:

TROY
now what will make me happy anthony is you telling me the truth about the knife.

ANTHONY
ok. i will tell you the truth but it will sound like it's not the truth.

TROY
ok. i know you'll tell me the truth because that is what will make me happy.

ANTHONY
i was at school and got a package. it said it was from alex and to anthony and in it was the knife.

i think we can collectively applaud anthony's intuition that that his answer may sound a bit askew. after a touch of work i learned alexander made some trespass upon anthony, making anthony quite perturbed. it retaliation, anthony snuck alex's new swiss army knife from its nail on aleo's bunk, stuffed it into his pants pocket and gave it to grady at school telling grady he could keep it forever and ever. when grady looked in his palm asking "for real", anthony replied, "yes for real".

i can tell by bella's listening stance that she's dubious of the yarn i'm spinning. at this age she still did not fully yet know the annoying draw she got in fathers. now she can spot a questionable tale minutes sooner than most. while it surely makes her a tougher mark for me to hoodwink, i reckon it will serve her well on the debate team or in professional matters. ...

bella's grandma, marty's mom, is a master pie maker. given her years of making them, i reckon a momma-nat homemade pie is about as good as you'd taste anywhere. a few fridays back bella and her grandmother made an apple pie together. on the following saturday afternoon bella walked onto the porch carrying a plate with a slice of pie and some ice cream. having seen her already partake in several sn...

i failed to detail a facet of last weekend's bookguy-troy trip. given the amount of distance we had to cover, we weren't quite sure exactly when we'd arrive in albuquerque. we knew it would be sometime sunday but couldn't know precisely when. to be safe, we booked the return ticket for monday (a direct flight departing at noon). saturday's drive had a few bumps in the form of a late start (i had to run anthony to the doctor before we could leave) and car drama (the check engine light came on due to a loose gas cap) and some highway shutdowns (which led to a detour through some picturesque farm country). hoping to hedge for further mishaps, we set out early on day three. this pro-activeness delivered us to our destination in the early afternoon, allowing bookguy to drop me off at the airport and finish the last few hours of his drive in a sane hour.

after getting lunch (an extraordinary lunch), we drove to the airport and looked for a nice/new looking hotel for me to spend the day and night in before my monday flight. after passing a few we pulled into a holiday inn express. unlike the standard holiday inns, these are reliably clean. given the early hour and sun-cooking day, i asked the counter girl if there were any outdoor pools nearby. she said there were not any in walking distance. i said i'd make do and took the $100 room she had offered. after paying and getting my key, bookguy and i exchanged a back-clapping hug and he continued on.

i went to the room which proved nice as expected. i took a twenty minute nap on the king sized bed. upon waking, i grabbed my bag and set out to find a spot in the shade with a view of the mountains to read my book from. as i climbed the hill away from hotel the two o'clock sun already had me sweating. i stopped to survey the land looking which way to go. in my scan a large blue umbrella caught my eye. i walked towards it and found the hotel just next to the one i checked into had a beautiful small outdoor pool that was totally unoccupied. i glowered at the holiday inn, miffed the clerk i just spoke with wasn't conscientious enough to tell me that if i wanted a pool, the place next door had one. i decided it wasn't in the cards and continued my walk up the hill. as i looked about i saw nothing but dry, brown desert. then two drops of sweat rolled down my cheek. i wiped my forehead. it was drenched.

i turned around, walked into the lobby of the pool hotel and asked how much for a room. $100. i slid my id and credit card across the counter and said i'd take it. after getting my key, i walked back to the holiday inn, grabbed the few items i left there. i opened the door of my new room (a three room suite!!! with a kitchen!!! and an outdoor pool!!!—for the same price!!!), changed into my trunks, grabbed my swim goggles (preparedness!) and book, and happily made for the pool. i enjoyed being the sole patron of this oasis for the next four hours. being a recreational pool, it could not shoulder any lap swimming, but it had a perfect design for me to practice flip turns. so for the next four hours, i enjoyed the feel of royalty under a deep blue, western sky dappled with the occasional extra-white, billowy cloud. my routine? i'd read a chapter of my book - the girl who played with fire - and then slip into the cool water and practice executing flip-turns for ten minutes or so. chapter. flip-turns. chapter. flip-turns. chapter. flip-turns. in this whole time i saw three people pass by the pool. none entered. adam levine may not have it this good.

then at seven i checked in with my family, had a green salsa sushi roll in downtown albequerque (the hotel would even shuttle me to and from town if needed!!!) followed by a movie (prometheus which was disappointingly disappointing). i then returned to my room, sacked out. i woke early, more reading, then a short shuttle ride to the small airport for a quick pass through security, allowing for more reading, and capped by an on-time, direct flight home, which yes, allowed for more reading. the final page count for the twenty four hours bested three hundred pages. it's been awhile since i've made that kind of milage in a book in a single day—granted, bella would not be impressed.

i'm not sure if i've ever said it on this site, but many who know me well know that one of my persistent life goals is to experience guilt-free boredom every now and again. for me, it is part of the human experience and one we don't get to taste nearly enough given our self-inflicted lifestyles. i can say that the twenty-four hours i spent in albequerque new mexico following a two day drive with an immensely great friend stood as one of the most blissfully boring stretches i can remember experiencing in the last twenty years. recuperative, therapeutic, and lovely beyond description.

oh, and name of the uber hotel which provided services and comfort beyond all expectation: homewood suites. it's astonishing that those two rooms, sitting side by side cost the same. the homewood people need to kick their PR people in the ass because what they have to offer stomps the heck out of their neighbor but there's no way for a passer-by to discern this great disparity.

bookguy passed through town on his way from north carolina to new mexico. he called a week before the trip to ask if i'd like to keep him company on the trek's second and third days. those that have been hangin' around here for awhile may remember the time bookguy had to drive from cleveland to st. louis and i flew to cleveland the morning he left, he picked me up at the airport, and we pulled onto the highway and drove straight back to saint louis. in that i still had strong and fond memories of the cleveland excursion, and with marty's blessing, i quickly signed on the dotted line.

bookguy arrived friday night. he and marty caught up some (while i snuck off to bed). we woke saturday morn, hopped in his just purchased Subaru outback and headed west. in that we missed our last two ski trips, one due to a biking accident he had and the next due to my re-injuring my knee playing tennis, we were down some focused quality time. additionally, we've each had some heavy life events in the last few years so the need to talk went beyond simple guy time goofiness. the two day drive, free of email and phones and chores (and wives and children) proved magical. then, similar to the last outing, one leg of the trip involved an airport. this time i got dropped at the airport in albuquerque, new mexico (after an extraordinary meal at the frontier inn) to catch my return flight home.

after i got back home i had an email waiting for me. bookguy reported the last few hours of his trip ran smoothly and the kids (and surely the wife) were thankful to have him back. lastly he thanked me for sacrificing a weekend to keep him company. i replied that the time was both enjoyable and memorable and it's hard to ask more than that from a couple of days.

p.s. the cleveland trip happened almost ten years ago to the day. life is awesome.

i've been sittin' on this one for a few weeks. a past student shared it with me before it exploded. it you haven't watched it yet, it's juicy good, like a just right porterhouse.

the latest and greatest marty quote. i won't ruin the fun of letting your imagination run with that one. enjoy your weekend. i'll betcha mine will be more memorable than yours ... more on that next week.

we took the boys to a catholic church service on sunday. bella didn't go because she was camping with friends. family friends were playing the bells and we wanted to go see and support them. we chose to stay for the whole service as to not be disrespectful. when it comes to church-going, our kids have only been to weddings and funerals so a service was new territory. keeping anthony still and quiet proved most challenging but he made it through the hour plus event. as we walked out afterward, marty told the kids that some families did this every week. anthony gave a flat two-word response "that's sad". marty went on to talk about how she was one of those kids growing up and that she sometimes wondered if she was making the right choice for her kids by not taking them to church. alex in an equally flat, conversational tone said, "you don't have to worry about us mom. we'll be fine." i couldn't have defended the suddenly tenuous position any better than the two boys did.

a few people named two of this year's commencement addresses as the best, or most inspirational at least. the first, by cartoonist mike peters, happened where i work, the second, by author neil gaiman, took place at an art school in Philadelphia. as someone who dabbles in presentations (and is a commencement speech junkie) i was struck by how stupendously different the two approaches were. peters started out in such a meandering fashion you wondered if he prepared anything. gaiman's talk was so dense the first thing i did after watching it was find a transcript and re-read it marking it up with my symbols and notes like it were an academic text.

while i enjoyed both, gaiman's was rich with insight. in example: that has to be one of the most cogent insights into the professional world ever made. and i know the guy writes for a living but the compact, precise articulation of his concept is breathtaking in a literary and observational sense. if i ever met that guy, the question i would ask him is how he came upon that insight. did it bleed out over months or did it appear in a flash while showering or exercising. furthermore, gaiman demonstrates how life experience blows the doors off most other forms of learning and how the art of introspection is the prism that allows you to understand what unfolds around us. spectacular.

one of the family that came of marty's smores party had four kids. all boys. their children's ages perfectly align with our kids except they have an extra one, a three year old, on the end. with four kids eleven and under in your care, you can imagine how little uninterrupted social time they had to talk with others. all evening their kids ran up interrupting their conversations in need of help with a toy, a thirst, or an injustice. as the night wound down and the father gave the five minute warning, the children disappeared from view and never returned (excepting the three year old who was asleep on the mother's lap). after ten minutes time and conversation the man said, "wow. i haven't seen any of my kids since i told them we would be leaving soon. this is kind of nice. in the future i think i'll give the five minute warning ten minutes after showing up."

his discovery reminds me of the advice my father in law, pappa ken, gave me after we had kids: "you just gotta be smarter than your kids." i know i've mentioned this wisdom before, but i think of it often. surprisingly often. on paper it sounds trivial enough. in practice it is most slippery.

the thing that strikes me about this picture is the necklace around anthony's neck. i'm struck because it is alex's necklace. it is very much alex's necklace. fact is that necklace proved to be (and continues to prove to be at the time of this writing) a very important token to alex. alex went through a few month stretch of separation anxiety when he was younger, like six and seven. this necklace ...

i coached bella's softball team this year. i've helped coach many of the kids' teams but have never been the head coach. and yes, being the main guy is different, different in all of those stereotypical ways. in the end it was a fabulous experience, largely due to the group of girls who signed up. i know this is the universe being kind to me.

i believe i was a rather unorthodox coach. at the first practice we sat in a circle and played a name game i've used in teaching for more than twenty years (i'm horribly name challenged). i then explained to the girls that what was important to me was not how many games we won or lost but how much improvement each girl saw, individually, in themselves. so yes, i wanted them to be competitive but not with the other teams, with themselves. and that i didn't want our esteem to come from how we did against the other teams that signed up but instead from how much effort and focus we applied as individuals and as a group.

this was tested partway into the season after we won our first game and the girls were jumping up and down chanting, "we won! we won! we won!". after shaking hands with the other team, i called the girls over to the side away from everyone, had them sit down and told them, "ladies. we signed up to play a game called softball, not a game called win. every week we've come out here, win or lose, we've gotten to play softball. because we get to do every week what we signed up to do, you should show the excitement you showed today after every game, win or lose." during my talk the girls stared at me blankly. after my talk they all resumed their celebration, albeit more quietly when i was in earshot.

we had our final game of the season last weekend. the girls spirit was light and playful. after the game (a game we lost in the bottom of the final inning) they came and said they made up a cheer and asked if they could sing it. i said of course. so they huddled up and in unison cheered:

U-City Unicorns number one.
We just wanna have some fun.
We don't care if we-e win,
We just want to wear a grin.

as i stood and took this in, one word played through my head, "wow".

then we went for year-end ice cream.